They both got featured as part of the blog template, and I'll probably repeat most of what was said there, but I wanted to dig in a little more maybe.
Masika El-Borak was possibly the first character I made whose name was packed with meaning... Masika is an Egyptian name that means "born during rain". And her surname, El-Borak is actually an Arabic name that means "the lightning". Because she's my half-elf Storm Sorcerer.
She was supposed to be my bad girl, my bitch, my character who didn't give a fuck and wasn't nice (the fact her first name, the way I pronounce it, is a homonym for massacre only occurred to me later). But something happened to Masika when she travelled across the desert with a bunch of idiots, then continued to hang out with them for months and months and months. She ended up caring about them and they cared about her. And kind of ended up as either the bitchy older sister or occasionally the slightly exasperated and authoritative mother of the group. Well, except for the pretty but insane human girl PC she ended up fucking... their relationship has been weird and on-again, off-again, mostly due to the player in question, but still incredibly important to who both of those characters are now. She also has possibly the shortest temper of all my characters. If you fuck with what's hers, she will end you in spectacular fashion. She also once shaved her head after an altercation with an barman in a dockside tavern.
And I wouldn't have her any other way.
The designs on her coat actually come directly from Elizabeth Swan's pirate captain coat in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. Her whole outfit in my head (and outside of what is possible in a Hero Forge design) was basically a dark blue version of that outfit. And when I found a fan made image of the coat embroidery, you bet I added it straight to her outfit. She also has a Lichtenburg scar down the entire left side of her body, from neck, down her arm and down to her foot... but very few people get to see the whole thing.
Oceanus (Oh-see-ann-us, thank you very much) Hopkins owes his name to an episode of the No Such Thing As A Fish podcast. Because Oceanus Hopkins is the name of the only child born on the Mayflower, bringing the pilgrims to America. And even better than that, Mrs Elizabeth Hopkins was Miss Elizabeth Fisher before her marriage. Too damn good. So I scribbled it down, intending to give the name to a water genasi at some point.
As a brief sidebar, the list of names of passengers on the Mayflower (or other members of their family) is a DnD player's/DM's dream. Humility Cooper. The brothers Resolved and Peregrine White. The siblings Love, Patience, Fear, and Wrestling Brewster. Desire Minter. Too fun.
Anyway, Oceanus is "Southern". My accept repertoire isn't enormous... I can do a decent accent from the American south though. And by decent, I mean often terrible, but a bad real world accent makes for a workable DnD accent. He's also partially Southern because one of my friends was playing a fire genasi who was Southern, and I liked the idea that genasi are just Southern. It also makes him often more laid back than I might otherwise play characters. He's also has a lot of Big Dad Energy. I didn't intend to play him that way, but maybe because I play him mostly with people roughly two decades younger than me, it's just what happens. I also haven't played him in almost a year at this point, which makes me kinda sad.
Oh and for the record, I've always described his coat as being his leather armour, but being made of "kelp leather"... in fact, his pants, boots and coat are all "kelp leather" because it sounds cool, and it seems weird for a druid who is all about caring for the coastline and the water to kill animals to make clothing. Plus I wanted something that would resist getting wet given the amount of time he was going to be in and out of the water, being a water genasi druid. You also can't see the full collection of rings on his fingers, which is a shame. The jewellery is the only thing that doesn't 100% gel with the way I ended up playing him (he doesn't feel like someone who would care about shinys, but maybe they're all things he found down on the ocean floor or in salvaged ships), but it was too cool a visual not to keep.
This week was... let's be honest, with a few slight variations, this week was the same as every week since late March, and not that dissimilar from every week before that.
However, I made the Tuna Noodle Casserole I mentioned last week, and it worked out really well. Doubly so because the weather this week was... way too fucking hot for October, so I ended up having the additional portions cold through the week, and it was really nice. And I think I only succumbed to eating out of the plastic container once. Otherwise, I still put it in a bowl and ate it like a person.
I spoke too soon about Soup Season being over though, since the weather goes back to a much more reasonable level next week. So I'm doing possibly a chicken minestrone. Or something.
Wednesday DnD was... a non-event. We hadn't organised anything, and then the suggestion was made to play board games in person. But Wednesday was the hottest day and I had been sleeping really shit all week... so I just wanted to stay home and hibernate. So I did.
Friday the weather was suddenly wet and cool... I mean honestly, I ask you.
Also on Friday I had my chiro, so that was essentially same same but different. And I got back here before it started to rain properly, so bonus there.
Friday night's DnD was good... I mean we kind of detoured into an hour long conversation about Buffy, since Fluffy is currently watching it for the very first time... which is a total walk down memory lane for the rest of us. In the best possible way.
The game itself ended up being just a combat encounter. For various reasons, not least of all because we came very close to getting our asses handed to us... but didn't, we called it after that. Next week will be our one year anniversary (which is actually the 25th), which is kind of insane. It also means that this week (the 18th, aka tomorrow) is the one year of our "session zero", such as it was.
And honestly, if we could survive playing online from March thru June and still be talking to each other, we're good.
This morning was the usual supermarketry.
The rest of today was walking... so much walking... I mean not really in the before times, but now... so much walking. We went to Westfield Marion. Ostensibly to look at potential ideas for Christmas presents... but also because we haven't been since... last year. I don't know when we last went last year... November maybe? Or possibly late December after Christmas... I honestly have no idea... but it's been 10 months. Weird.
And we did our usual walk. When neither of us are walking anywhere as much as we previously did. So now everything is complaining *le sigh*.
But we found a few things... a few ideas also. So it wasn't a total waste of time. And we got those steps in.
Current mood:
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